1 in 300 people suffer from schizophrenia, approximately 5% of people with schizophrenia die by suicide, (Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005) and about 20% of people with schizophrenia attempted suicide at least once. (The Recovery Village, 2020) This study aims to raise awareness of paranoid schizophrenia, a common form of schizophrenia, by examining two literary works: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and Lu Xun’s “A Madman’s Diary,” both of which shares the same theme of paranoia, with allusions to paranoid schizophrenia. Comparative literature criticism will be used in this study to identify the mental disorder by examining the similarities and differences between the two literary works side by side, deducing how paranoid schizophrenia affect the mental attitude and the mannerisms of the protagonist in both literary works, and how mental disorder is perceived in the East and West by examining the protagonists personal and public interactions in both literary works.

Keywords: Comparative Literature, Mental Disorder, Paranoid Schizophrenia